14 April 2016

Almost mid-way betwixt
Scarborough and Bridlington,
Filey Brigg,
being a nose of cliff thrust out into the sea
to form a horn of Filey Bay.

Here, there, are sands
i n o n e v a s t g l o r i o u s e x p a n s e,
from the Brigg to the Bempton Cliffs –
six miles of them all round the bay,
so spacious that there could never be
any overcrowding.
The beach shelves gently.

11 April 2016

Be kind,
resourceful,
beautiful,
friendly,
have initiative,
have a sense of humour,
tell right from wrong,
make mistakes,
fall in love,
enjoy strawberries and cream,
make some one fall in love with you,
learn from experience,
use words properly,
be the subject of your own thought,
have as much diversity of behaviour as a man,
do something really new.

A list of activities that critics of mechanical information processing claim a machine could never by fundamental nature perform, from Computing Machinery and Intelligence by Alan Turing, published in the journal Mind, 1950, chapter 'Arguments from Various Disabilities'. Lines 11 and 14 changed to second person. Submitted by Daniel Galef.

07 April 2016

The monsters
in our cupboards
and our minds
are always there
in the darkness
like mold
beneath the floorboards
and behind the wallpaper
and there is so much darkness
an inexhaustible supply
of darkness.